Wading through the wet bracken, we knew, would be worth it, for on the other side of the green fronds there is a stone…and it is something a bit different, in more ways than one. Several examples of Neolithic rock art, or petroglyphs, have been found on this part of the moor. One we have yet to locate, another, found during the excavation of a cairn, has been moved to the museum in Sheffield, and one… a huge, earthfast boulder… remains where it was found. But all is not what it seems.

Gardom’s Edge carved stone.

The stone, one of the best we have yet to see in the area, was discovered in the 1960s, but it was soon noted that the carvings were rapidly deteriorating. This, sadly, is the case for many of the remaining petroglyphs that have withstood natural weathering for thousands of years, only to be almost obliterated since the Industrial Revolution altered the atmospheric chemistry of the world. One of the best known carvings to have suffered so is the Fylfot at Ilkley, also known as the Swastika Stone, that bears an image similar to the Camunian Rose found carved in Italy. When I was younger it was clearly visible. Now only a faint shadow remains and can only be clearly seen when the weather and light are right, behind its modern counterpart that at least still allows us to see what was once deeply carved in stone.

Fylfot: The original carving is faintly visible behind and left of the modern reproduction. Image: James Elkington who also has an article on the stone.

Something needed to be done in order to protect the stone we had come to see and prevent it from sharing the same fate as the Fylfot. It is a large stone, difficult, though not impossible, to remove to a covered location, but the trouble with moving such stones is that their context is forever lost. We do not know for certain what they mean. What we do know is that many, if not all, of the significant stones that our ancestors left only make sense when seen in relationship to their surroundings. There are known alignments to landscape features, planetary bodies and to other ancestral stones… removing them from their place in the landscape robs us of any chance at all of learning to understand them.

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About Sue Vincent

Sue Vincent is a Yorkshire-born writer and one of the Directors of The Silent Eye, a modern Mystery School. She writes alone and with Stuart France, exploring ancient myths, the mysterious landscape of Albion and the inner journey of the soul. Find out more at France and Vincent. She is owned by a small dog who also blogs.
Follow her at scvincent.com and on Twitter @SCVincent. Find her books on Goodreads and follow her on Amazon worldwide to find out about new releases and offers. Email: findme@scvincent.com.

2 Responses to Circles beyond Time – Ancient lines

So fascinating. It is a shame that they are weathering so quickly. Maybe they need to make plexiglass shelters over them? Our own Plymouth Rock had to be sunk and a pavilion built over it, not to protect it from weather but from souvenir hunters who were chipping it away. What goes through people’s minds baffles me.

The thing with that is that in areas like Ilkley, there are literally hundreds of such stones in a very small area.
Many of those too are subject to vandalism… some even think painting the carvings is ‘helpful’ for their visibility… yes, what goes through some minds sis baffling.

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